The Arizona Capitol Museum building at the State Capitol in Phoenix.
The Buzz for January 10, 2025
Arizona's 2025 legislative session opens next week. A handful of topics are likely to continue to top discussions around the legislature. Even though legislators are not yet gathering, a number of bills have been introduced, giving some ideas of what the major topics will be for the session.
Almost any bill that comes through will need support from both parties due to shared power, with the Republicans holding slim majorities in both chambers of the legislature and the Democrats in control of the governor's office.
"The last two years, we've put together majority plans. We've executed those plans, and the great thing is a majority of the bills that we've actually put forward have been signed. There's a lot of attention towards the ones that are vetoed. I think people like to focus on that, but the reality is most of the bills we put on her desk were signed." said Republican Senate President Warren Petersen.
A Democratic leader in the legislature said that she is expecting to be in a defensive role, and not just because her party is in the minority in both chambers.
"We're facing the federal Republican trifecta. So with Republicans control in control at both the both the federal level and at the state legislative level, Democrats in the legislature will continue to play an important defensive role in making sure that we are highlighting a lot of the problems with what Republicans are bringing forward, making sure that we are bringing daylight and information and the important context about impacts," said Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan.
Both leaders acknowledge that a major topic of debate will likely be the renewal of Proposition 123, which ten years ago began pulling money from the state land trust in order to better fund Arizona's schools. Both Petersen and Sundareshan expressed interest in continuing Prop 123.
"We've never caught up to the cuts that were made during the recession, and have barely kept up with inflation. So anything that is going to continue to provide funding for public education, Democrats are supportive of. And in the prop 123 context, we are looking for a simple continuation of prop 123 we're not looking to, you know, add in unrelated proposals to the prop 123 discussion. I think the simplest answer is just continue prop 123. Provide the needed education funding. That it has been providing, and let's move on. Let's not try to bog down the negotiations with unnecessary and unrelated proposals," said Sen. Sundareshan.
"I think the schism that we've seen is that the governor's office and the Democrats have wanted this funding to kind of go out to all parties, and we feel like without accountability, and the Republicans really want this to be focused on teacher pay. We really want it to get into the classroom. That remains a disagreement. And I think Republicans also want to see school choice, parental choice. Parents have the right to educate their kids the way they want to. Democrats disagree with us on that. And so that is certainly part of the discussion as well," said Sen. Petersen.
Another topic that both mentioned is water issues, particularly rural issues.
"I've been working the last two years very significantly on water issues. I think water is one of those areas where there is a statewide recognition that has been growing over the last many years that rural groundwater has not been protected. Rural residents are facing a lot of significant issues. Even small family farms are unable to continue to pass their family operations down through their generations. And so Democrats have long been seeking protections, but it's finally at the point where I think there's statewide recognition, there's statewide momentum. So I'm, I'm very optimistic, actually, that we will be able to protect rural groundwater and accomplish some really significant, positive protections," said Sen. Sundareshan.
Sen. Petersen is focused on saving water by bringing back a proposal that would aid in converting farmland in certain areas to be converted into housing developments.
"If you're going to take a farm that uses three times the water that how a housing development uses, and that farm is purchased to be used for housing. Well, then you should be able to grant them the permits to build. It's a two thirds water saving, the housing is literally the solution to the problem," he said.
The housing concern that Sen. Sundareshan mentioned was more concerned about the homes that already exist.
"We're looking to make housing affordable again, and whether that is seeking to limit the ability for out of state corporations who are coming in and raising rents astronomically, or even, you know, looking at the issue of short term rentals, these are issues that the Republican majority has not been interested In picking up in the last couple of years," she said.
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